Musings and sharings on my devotion to an ancient religion.

Pastoral Minister. Fan. Writer. Ninja.

Twenty years of pastoral experience plus more than forty years of fandom equals a faith/fun mashup. Join me as we journey through a life of faith while engaging the things of this, and the other worlds that we love.

In the first episodes of Voltron: Legendary Defender, we meet a young cadet name Pidge; but Pidge isn’t what he seems. In episode six, “Taking Flight,” we learn that Pidge is, in fact, a girl. When her brother and father were lost on a Galaxy Garrison mission, she went in search of them. Having been caught hacking the Garrison computer as her true identity, Katie Holt, she needed to redefine herself in order to gain access to the computer without being discovered. Katie cut her hair, dressed like a boy and presented herself as Pidge Gunderson; a cadet in the Galaxy Garrison. Fate assigned her to a team with Hunk and Lance, and she ultimately becomes the Paladin of the Green Lion.

In the readings for this Sunday, Jan. 14, God continues the theme of invitation that was begun in the readings from last week’s Epiphany readings. Our first reading shows how God calls even the young, like Samuel, and how important it is to have good mentors like Eli to help discern what is being asked of us. Our second reading is a wonderful reminder that our bodies are good and holy, and made for God’s glory. God chooses to live in us, making us temples of God’s Holy Spirit. This means that we have a great responsibility to care for ourselves and to use our lives in God’s service. The Gospel recalls the falling back of John the Baptist, and the coming forward of Jesus’ ministry. Andrew recognized Jesus’ specialness right away, and responded immediately to his invitation to “come and see.” After spending just a little time with Jesus, Andrew began to gather others to share in what he had found — the Messiah — the hope of Israel. Every time we hear God’s invitation and answer it, we are drawn deeper into greatness and become more fully human, and more fully alive.

The readings for this Sunday, Dec. 24, prepare us for what we celebrate later in the evening, or the next morning —that God pitched his tent and dwelt among us. The Scriptures offer us a view of God’s unfolding promise to come and save his people — from the promise made to King David that the Messiah would come from his line, to the prophets and wisdom literature reassuring God’s people that God was coming and to hold tight, to Mary and Elizabeth experiencing God’s coming to them specially in the babies that they would bear — the promise of fruitfulness to Elizabeth in her old age, and the promise of salvation for all people through Mary. Each carried God’s promise more fully to the present moment, and each of us are invited to be Temple’s of God’s presence in our lives.

The Star Wars franchise has had plenty of ups and downs, but The Last Jedi was a two-hour-and-forty-minute expression of those ups and downs all in one shot. There were cheerful moments (moments when everyone cheered) and “Seriously?” moments. The movie was too ambitious and accomplished less by doing too much. There was a very interesting commentary on the role of religion in society as we see Luke’s struggle with the use of the Jedi and his desire to end the religion. It’s a good watch and a great movie for family discussion.

We call today Gaudete Sunday because “gaudete” means rejoice. In the readings for this Sunday, Dec. 17, we’re given a reason to rejoice — because God’s justice is at hand. He has come to save us, and we receive this in our baptism. The readings make a strong connection with the readings we hear during Lent. What Jesus began at Christmas is completed at Easter, and we’re encouraged to think about our baptism as a reminder of this. We hear the reading from Isaiah that Jesus chose as an introduction to himself in the beginning of his public ministry, and we hear John introduce Jesus as the one who would come after him, and make baptism more than a symbol. The forgiveness of our sins in baptism is our reason to rejoice, because when we’re forgiven, we experience all of the gifts that we hear in the jubilee text of the first reading.

The readings for this Sunday, Dec. 10, keep us focused on the second coming, as the first two weeks of Advent do. We hear God’s original promise to come to earth to save God’s people, and we hear God’s continued promise to come and finish what he started in Jesus’ establishing the reign of God on earth. Our funky, three week Advent is a keeper of time as we draw closer to Christmas, and a reminder that we work within God’s timing, not our own. Peter reinforces this in the second reading, where he speaks of a day being like a thousand years to God and vice versa. The Gospel recalls our baptism as a sign of our identity as children of God, inheritors of God’s promise of salvation, and our need to pay attention to the prophetic voice of the John the Baptists in our lives.

The readings for this Sunday, Dec. 3, are a little bridge between our experience of God as King of the Universe and our experience of God as a tiny, innocent, helpless baby. The baby is going to be our focus soon, but we know that Jesus isn’t helpless. Our God has always come to us in ways that we can understand, this first week of Advent, we’re encouraged to pay attention to the many ways that Jesus reveals himself to us, to look for him everywhere in our lives, and to make our hearts ready to see him when he’s with us.

Grief can be paralyzing. It makes us stop, take notice of the pain, and sit with it. When dealt with healthily, it can move us into a new depth of human experience, making us stronger, more empathetic, and ready to reach out and help others. Or, it can hold us in place and prevent us from acting, stopping us from living fully. In the Justice League movie, each member experiences a form of grief that keeps them stuck in place until they find community, a common mission, and healing.

The readings for this Sunday, Nov. 26, tell us that on the day we celebrate most particularly the Kingship of Jesus, we focus on him as being a shepherd—one of the dirtiest, least desirable jobs of the ancient world. This is our King—our God—the one who loves us so much that he uses his authority to become the lowest of the low in order to save us. And our salvation, we’re told, is dependent on our willingness to do the same.

The DC movies have been considered by most to be falling short of their competitor, Marvel, but Justice League, more than any of their most recent movies, in my opinion, holds up. It’s not a movie for all kids, but I highly recommend it for families with pre-teens and teens.